The Eclectic Choice: Edgar Wallace Collection Vol.2

Edgar Wallace Collection Vol. 1 (1959/1963)
dir. Harald Reinl/Edwin Zbonek


Edgar Wallace was one of the more prominent mystery/thriller writers in the early 20th century and is best known to film geeks today as one of the original writers on King Kong. But in post war Germany, there was a resurgence of his fiction being turned into film. Most of these were championed by producer Artur Brauner who worked effortlessly to reestablish the German film industry in the 1950's. He succeeded mostly in creating a treasure trove of genre pulp ranging from the disposable to the lost classic. In the first volume of these Edgar Wallace based films, we get to see two of the better offerings.

The first is The Mad Executioners (1963) about a hooded group of gents who put London's criminals on trial and then execute them with a certain level of pomp and circumstance. It's moody and atmospheric and has a bizarre subplot that ties into the cavorting hangmen, but feels slightly out of place. If I say it concerns mad doctor cutting the heads off of women to keep them alive on an artificial body, it sounds like a different movie entirely, but it's not. It does become a bit of a brow scratcher, but still fun with some production design that hearkens back to the good old days of expressionism.

The second was not produced by Brauner, but directed by a director he used often, Harald Reinl. Reinl would direct many of the Brauner produced Dr. Mabuse films as well as the cult documentary Chariots Of The Gods (1972). Here, Reinl gives us Fellowship Of The Frog (1959). This one concerns a group of thieves lead by "The Frog" who runs around in a covered face mask with bulbous eyes and brands members of his syndicate with a frog tattoo. This one is a little more corny and has some plotting issues, but one of the oddest character cameos in movie history. It comes to light that The Frog is none other than Harry Lime from The Third Man (1949)! Really? Interesting. Wallace's story was written years before Reed's film and the character was created by Graham Green in 1948. So it seems like one of those gimmicks to bring in some ticket sales. The actor who plays Lime looks nothing like Orson Welles accept for bulk weight and may not have been named Lime in the original German version. Both of these films are dubbed, so who knows if the original character was Lime or not. It' s a good gimmick though, I perked right up when I heard the name and it earned a few more points for having the balls to say it was a Harry Lime crime scheme.

The prints are not the best quality, sometimes downright awful, but it adds a little something. It's like finding a lost relic covered in dust, but seeing the beauty underneath. Overall they are an easy view and quite enjoyable as camp or even a studious look at the German film industry when they were stumbling around trying to find a voice again. With the exception of the dubbing, you'd never know they were foreign at all. They maintain the same level of quality, if not better, than some of the Hollywood B-movies of the era.

Well worth renting or a purchase to revisit an era that has been long brushed aside for artier fare.